Facts about Iron. 419 



FACTS ABOUT IRON. 



Antiquaries have, for the most part, decided that an c ' age of 

 bronze" preceded an age of iron; but, although they may 

 establish their theory to a certain extent, it cannot be accepted 

 as universally or necessarily true, and it is very important, in 

 studying the manners of ancient races, or in examining their 

 works, to bear in mind the arguments that favour an hypothesis 

 of a totally opposite kind. When rich ores are readily attain- 

 able, and wood to make charcoal is at hand, the most natural 

 order of development is that iron should be smelted and 

 employed long before the discovery of the mode of making 

 bronze; and if any people, who might have extracted iron 

 with facility, really began their metal working by a scientific 

 combination of copper and tin, it would be only fair to con- 

 clude that they did so, not as a result of native development, 

 but by the instruction and example of a more advanced race. 

 Dr. Percy remarks,* "that of all metallurgical processes the 

 extraction of iron is the most simple. Thus, if a lump of red 

 or brown hematite be heated for a few hours in a charcoal fire, 

 well surrounded by or imbedded in the fuel, it will be more or 

 less completely reduced, so as to admit of its being forged at a 

 red heat into a bar of iron." He adds that this primitive 

 process requires far less skill than what is employed in the 

 manufacture of bronze. The extraction of iron from its richer 

 ores belongs to an antiquity transcending the historic period, 

 and it is remarkable that it can be effected on a small scale 

 without even the help of a furnace, in a simple apparatus 

 rather partaking of the character of a forge. Dr. Percy cites 

 an example of this, upon the authority of Dr. Hooker, in whose 

 Himalayan Journal appears an elegant sketch of a young man 

 standing upon a large pair of primitive bellows, which he 

 works with his feet. A fascinating young woman stands 

 behind him upon the same machine, and the stream of air 

 they impel passes through the bottom of an upright, flat, 

 sloping stone, under whose shelter glows a small fire, in which 

 little balls of iron are produced. This sketch is copied in Dr. 

 Percy' s work. 



In working on a small scale, malleable iron is obtained 

 directly from suitable ores. This is the case in the native pro- 

 duction of the Hindoos, the Africans, the Borneans, and all 



* Metallurgy : the art of Extracting Metals from their Ores, and adapting 

 them to various purposes of Manufacture, by John Percy, M.D., F.R.S., Lecturer 

 on Metallurgy at the Royal School of Mines. Iron and Steel with Illustrations, 

 chiefly from original drawings, carefully laid down to scale. Murray. 

 VOL. V. — NO. VI. P F 



